I have to say I was fairly surprised when I saw "Sailor Stars" on the list of new Torrents on AnimeSuki's front page. I had completely forgotten that the last season of Sailor Moon wasn't licensed ^^;
I was really happy, though, that I would finally be able to see Sailor Stars. Along with probably a myriad of other people, my very first anime was Sailor Moon ^^ Unfortunately, I only had the dub to look at (before I found out about torrents) on Cartoon Network.
The Ami special was so cute ^^!! I've read about it but never seen it so that made me really happy.

I just wanted to say thank you so much!! ^^ I can now see the end of the first anime I started to watch.

What are other people's views on this? ^^

JAppi

2004-01-03 22:33

w00tage! S&M fans are the best!

I too became an anime fan from the bad dub. (Should I be proud of this?)

I wub Sailor Stars! I always thought stars was licensed too. Rather suprising it's not licensed. The only thing that bothers me is that it's lq svhs rips :( It would be interesting if a group would be willing to make digital versions using digital raws. (If they exist.)

Thank you VKLL!

hcl4

2004-01-04 00:44

Quote:

Originally Posted by JAppi

w00tage! S&M fans are the best!

I too became an anime fan from the bad dub. (Should I be proud of this?)

I wub Sailor Stars! I always thought stars was licensed too. Rather suprising it's not licensed. The only thing that bothers me is that it's lq svhs rips :( It would be interesting if a group would be willing to make digital versions using digital raws. (If they exist.)

Thank you VKLL!

I think you mean SM fans not S&M fans. :twitch:

relentlessflame

2004-01-04 02:56

Yup, I'm another anime fan who started, for better or worse, with the Sailor Moon dubs. I was very surprised and thrilled to finally be able to see Sailor Stars! That being said a few quick comments...

1. This almost goes without saying, but watching this subbed with the original voices is *SO* much better than the English dubs.

2. The first 6 episodes of Sailor Stars are unbelievably tight - so well done! It could almost be strung together and made a movie. From episode 7 on, it gets episodic again, but I always loved the connected serious story arc episodes.

3. The cross-dressing is a bit odd, but (up to this point) it hasn't been overdone. Considering the other animes that have been brought over here since then, I'm not sure why this couldn't be licensed, if there were an interest, although it probably couldn't be marketed the same way the old Sailor Moon series were. That being said, though, there's probably not much interest at this point.

4. Watching this show again (even though its a new season to me) reminded me of one of the most crazy of the "laws of anime"... call it the amnesia effect: All it takes is a mask or a different outfit, and there is no way in the world two anime character can recognize each other for the longest while. At best they think they other person looks vaguely familiar, but they can *never* place them... It's so crazy and frustrating, but it does make for a good way to build and extend a plot...

Anyways, looking forward to seeing the rest of Sailor Stars!

DrWho2002

2004-01-04 05:12

Umm... it's not cross dressing when it comes to the Three Lights/Sailor Star Lights... they're women as senshi, but their secret identities as the Three Lights are men. In the manga that is different, and Naoko Takeuchi didn't really like that they did that in the anime.

Toei will also not let Sailor Stars be licensed. They won't let it because they feel that if it were, the image of Sailor Moon most people have would change.

DekaMaster

2004-01-04 05:34

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrWho2002

Umm... it's not cross dressing when it comes to the Three Lights/Sailor Star Lights... they're women as senshi, but their secret identities as the Three Lights are men. In the manga that is different, and Naoko Takeuchi didn't really like that they did that in the anime.

Toei will also not let Sailor Stars be licensed. They won't let it because they feel that if it were, the image of Sailor Moon most people have would change.

<Sarcasm>Don't you just love Toei</Sarcasm>

BME

2004-01-04 06:14

Itīs nice to finally see the end of SM, but the whole crossdressing thing disturbs the hell out of me, it was bad enough when the first badguys in SuperS where a bunch of sexless crossdressing freaks.

but common, "Gentle Uterous" WTF is up with the name of that attack?

corp20

2004-01-04 06:21

Does anyone know where I can get the import DVDs (if any)? All I can find are the LD but I don't have a LD player.

SoupForInsanity

2004-01-04 10:17

Quote:

Originally Posted by corp20

Does anyone know where I can get the import DVDs (if any)? All I can find are the LD but I don't have a LD player.

Um... If you're looking for subtitles you won't find any. Hence the reason why they're available on AnimeSuki.
If you're looking for original Japanese DVDs... ummm nothing sticks out in my mind at this moment but if I find something I'll be sure to let you know?

SilverHeimdall

2004-01-04 11:14

Hmm.. I've downloaded those files and the quality isn't good at all on those files o_o

I have the Sailor Stars serie from 3 years ago on .rm files and they work fine, although I'm missing 3 of the episodes

DekaMaster

2004-01-04 13:58

Quote:

Originally Posted by BME

Itīs nice to finally see the end of SM, but the whole crossdressing thing disturbs the hell out of me, it was bad enough when the first badguys in SuperS where a bunch of sexless crossdressing freaks.

but common, "Gentle Uterous" WTF is up with the name of that attack?

Not very secure are you :P

BME

2004-01-04 14:01

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingRanger

Not very secure are you :P

Sure I am, I accepted that Hawks-eye & Tigers-eye crossdresses, "fine!" I thought to my self, but then there was the episode where Fish-eye became a male model, I mean WTF!

Thelastguardian

2004-01-04 14:04

Now this is surprising, I thought all the Sailor Moon esp. would be licenced within six months they were out.

exedore

2004-01-04 14:25

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrWho2002

Toei will also not let Sailor Stars be licensed. They won't let it because they feel that if it were, the image of Sailor Moon most people have would change.

This really irks me about Toei because they're playing a game of double if not triple standars here. What do I mean? I mean that ALL of Sailor Moon, including the Specials and Stars aired ON TV and UNCUT in Germany/Austria, and even came out (IIRC) on home video dubbed in German.

Are they really that scared of things or do they just want to avoid the stupidity and closed-mindedness of American parents?

DrWho2002

2004-01-04 14:37

Probably.

Also Fish Eye was always a man (all of the Amazon Trio were men). The dub turned him into a woman, much like it did with Zoicite. (Although that still didn't explain the ep in SuperS where you see Fish Eye without boobs when he didn't have a top on, the dub just basically ignored that plot point totally.)

Star Gentle Uterus is the name of Star Healer's attack yes. It's like that in the manga as well, I believe. Blame Naoko Takeuchi... ^_^

Also, there are no DVD's of Sailor Stars officially released anywhere in the world. There are only LD's for that series, and they've all gone out of print long ago. For R1 DVD's there's the box sets for the first series and R (which are both crappily done by ADV, due to the shitty masters they were forced to work with that the "japanese licensor" dumped on them. Everyone speculates that it's Toei, but of course contract non-disclosure makes it impossible for anyone to know who exactly ADV got the rights from. They have not said who gave them the shitty masters and Toei has said nothing on the subject.) There is also the individual DVD's from Pioneer (now Geneon) for Sailor Moon S and SuperS, and the 3 movies.

There is currently no license for the Make Up! Sailor Senshi special, Dreaming Moon special, Sailor Moon SuperS Special, or the Ami-chan no Hatsukoi theatrical special, and of course Sailor Moon Sailor Stars.

In R2 DVD there is only the movie boxset (which went out of print in a week), and the first series DVD's (the box for those has also gone out of print). They were originally supposed to have been more releases past the first series, but they stopped after they finished the first boxset. (According to their original release schedule, everything should have been out by now.) Toei has given no explanation for this other than "we'll release them when we're ready." So if you see any kind of DVD on sale for Sailor Stars, you should know that they're all bootlegs.

relentlessflame

2004-01-04 17:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrWho2002

Umm... it's not cross dressing when it comes to the Three Lights/Sailor Star Lights... they're women as senshi, but their secret identities as the Three Lights are men. In the manga that is different, and Naoko Takeuchi didn't really like that they did that in the anime.

Toei will also not let Sailor Stars be licensed. They won't let it because they feel that if it were, the image of Sailor Moon most people have would change.

In the manga, the Three Lights/Sailor Star Lights are women all the time, or what? Incidentally, I did realize that, in the anime, they are women when transformed, and men the rest of the time. Yes, crossdressing was the wrong word, but what is the right word? Gender mutation? :twitch:

Also, if I'm not mistaken, wasn't the R1 release heavily edited to make it more "kid friendly"? If that is the case, isn't it Toei's own fault that people's image if Sailor Moon would change after seeing Sailor Stars? That isn't to say that Sailor Stars isn't a bit more edgy than the earlier series', but...

Anyways, I'm just glad to finally get a chance to see this series, subbed and unedited.

DrWho2002

2004-01-04 19:38

Yes, I believe they were women all the time in the manga. I don't own the manga for that part though, so don't take my word for it. I'm more anime fan than manga fan.

The dub that originally came out yes was edited quite a bit. The R1 sub only DVD's though are not (well except for the missing next ep previews). There are no cuts to the actual episode material in any of the subtitled DVD's available. I heard about something may have been done in the Sailor Moon R movie DVD, but I don't own that one (I have it on LD and R2 DVD so why would I need a R1? ^_^).

Sailor Stars has a lot of things that Toei feels strongly about (and Naoko Takeuchi). Who knows why they think the way they do.

lilitu93

2004-01-04 20:42

Quote:

Originally Posted by DrWho2002

Toei will also not let Sailor Stars be licensed. They won't let it because they feel that if it were, the image of Sailor Moon most people have would change.

I'm beginning to think that might not be the case, as a Geneon rep on Anime on DVD's boards mentioned a rumour that the conflicts that Takeuchi and Kodansha (the manga's publisher) are affecting the rights to SM anime in general and that they might be losing their license. So maybe all the licensing conflicts are related to that and not just because of Toei's worry about its image.

Something like that could explain why the Japanese DVD releases are being held up--it really doesn't make sense when Sailor Moon is still popular enough to support a rerelease/redoing of the manga and a new live action series. (I'd have thought that the rerelease of the manga implies that her problems with Kodansha have been cleared up, at least partially, but this post on AOD was very recent, and the rerelease has been coming out for a few months now.)

Garylisk

2004-01-05 01:53

The quality of the video files are as good as they'll get, unfotunately. I encoded the files from VKLL's fansub DVDs, which he made using his SVHS masters, which were made from Laserdisc source.

Also, there are not any R2 Sailor Stars DVDs available, all that's out right now in region 2 is first season.

MoS

2004-01-13 14:57

Quote:

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

In the manga, the Three Lights/Sailor Star Lights are women all the time, or what? Incidentally, I did realize that, in the anime, they are women when transformed, and men the rest of the time. Yes, crossdressing was the wrong word, but what is the right word? Gender mutation? :twitch:

My first question would be What the big deal so what they are men then women. Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune are gay.
Just my 2 cents